According to UK Biobank data, those who drink two or more cups of black tea each day have a decreased chance of death.

Science finally has some good news for tea drinkers, as the latest research shows that drinking tea lowers the risk of dying young.

As per Dr. Maki Inoue-Choi and a team from the National Cancer Institute, having two or more cups of black tea each day is better for you than drinking one cup.

People who drink two or more cups of tea each day have a nine to thirteen percent lower chance of dying prematurely when compared to non-tea drinkers.

The link appeared whether subjects also drank coffee, added milk or sugar to their tea, drank their tea at different temperatures, or had changes in caffeine-processing genes.

“Higher tea intake was associated with lower mortality risk among those drinking 2 or more cups per day, regardless of genetic variation in caffeine metabolism. These findings suggest that tea, even at higher levels of intake, can be part of a healthy diet,” the study authors write in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine.

American researchers used data on the tea-drinking habits of half a million British adults for the study.

The UK Biobank, a database holding the health information on participants who completed questionnaires when they registered in the research between 2006 and 2010, maintains information regarding how many brews they drank each day.

Tea was consumed on a regular basis by 85% of the participants in this study, while  89% of them said they drank black tea.

The study discovered that the association held true for heart disease mortality, but there was no apparent pattern for cancer deaths. Researchers aren’t sure why, but it’s conceivable that there weren’t enough cancer deaths for any effect to be seen, according to the study’s lead author Inoue-Choi.